KLUV-FM will replace KVIL-AM as the Cowboys' flagship radio net in '02, according to Ray Buck of the FT. WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM, who notes both stations are owned by Infinity Radio. KVIL has been the team's flagship station since '91. KVIL Operations Manager Kurt Johnson cited demographics as a "reason for the change." KLUV, an "oldies" station, "draws a diverse audience of both men and women, and has a listening format that provides on-air conversation and commentary as well as music." KVIL, which is considered "contemporary adult," plays mostly music and "attracts largely a female audience." Meanwhile, Buck notes Brad Sham will return for his 24th season as the Cowboys' play-by-play announcer, while Babe Laufenberg "is expected to be back" as an analyst for a fifth season (F.W. STAR-TELEGRAM, 12/28).

TV MONITOR: Last night's late edition of FSN's "NSR" led with Wizards-Pacers followed by Celtics-Suns. The first non-NBA report was the Angels trading 1B Mo Vaughn to the Mets for P Kevin Appier. Last night's 11:00 ET 60-minute edition of ESPN's "SportsCenter" led with the Vaughn/Appier trade, followed by Wizards-Pacers and Nets-Pistons. See THE DAILY INSIDER's TV Monitor for a complete listing from last night's sports news shows (THE DAILY).

The following are the top sports Internet properties accessed from home and work, ranked by unique audience from Nielsen//NetRatings for November '01. "Unique audience" = the number of people who access a site, with each person counted only once. "Active Reach %" = the number of unique Web users viewing a Web site one or more times, expressed as a percentage of the total active Web population for this week (i.e., 7.1% of Web users accessing the Internet from home viewed a site on ESPN at least once this time period). "Average Time Spent" = the average amount of time a visitor has spent at that property for the month. The data is based on audience measurement of more than 62,000 U.S. panelists who have Internet access at home and 8,000 U.S. panelists who have Internet access at work. The list does not include traffic to unique sites of the yahoo.com domain. Traffic to these sites are the predominant URLs, and are grouped to include commonly-owned sites (Nielsen//NetRatings).

Infinity Broadcasting and the YES Network have reached a five-year exclusive agreement to broadcast Yankees games in both English and Spanish. The deal begins with Spring Training in '02 and means that Yankees games will be broadcast in English on WCBS-AM in the N.Y. region. Sister station WFAN-AM will provide sales, marketing and production support for the broadcasts. The Spanish language station will be announced at a later date (YES Network). In N.Y., Richard Sandomir notes that financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but cites two execs as saying that the deal was worth $9.75M annually. WCBS VP & GM Steve Swenson said the all-news station acquired the rights to Yankees games because "we're looking for ways to increase revenues and listenership. We certainly hope that this will expose a lot of people to all-news radio." Sandomir also notes that the deal ends the team's 21-year relationship with WABC. The MSG Network was also bidding for the rights (N.Y. TIMES, 12/28). The N.Y. DAILY NEWS' Michael Obernauer cites sources as saying that Infinity "will pay in the range" of $8M per year (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 12/28). On Long Island, Steve Zipay notes that WABC paid about $7M for the rights last season (NEWSDAY, 12/28).

ROYAL TREATMENT? In K.C., Jeffrey Flanagan writes that by comparison, the Royals' radio deal with Entercom is worth a little more than" $5M over three years (K.C. STAR, 12/28).